Krakatit is an exceptionally powerful explosive called after the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa.
A special feature of krakatit is that erupts seemingly without cause.
The chemist engineer Prokop manages to make an unprecedentedly powerful explosive – krakatit. After an accident in the laboratory, an exhausted Prokop stumbles home. He meets Tomesh, an acquaintance from his studies, who takes care of him. Prokop, hallucinating from the fever, almost reveals the formula for krakatit to Tomesh who leaves shortly afterwards.
The next day Prokop opens the door to a young woman in a veil who asks him to bring the envelope to Tomesh. He goes to Týnice to visit Tomesh´s father, a doctor, and hopes to find Tomesh there. After his arrival he falls unconscious due to inflammation of the meninges. He also suffers from memory loss.
After twenty days, he begins to recover.
He falls in love with the doctor’s daughter Annie and slowly settles there.
He finds an advertisement from an unknown Mr. Carson, who urgently asks him to report to him, because of krakatit. Prokop is horrified that someone knows about krakatit and decides to find Carson. He discovers that this is the director of the military factory in Balttin, who is interested in buying krakatit for Tomesh.
Carson reveals to Prokop that Tomesh tried to sell him krakatit, but he only had the formula (Prokop told him in a fever) and he didn’t know how to create it, so he worked for Carson for a while and tried to make it.
So, Prokop goes to Balttin, where he intends to find Tomesh. He can’t find Tomesh in Balttin anymore, he stole krakatit in the meantime, and ran to a competing company. Prokop is forcibly held in Balttin. Although he can move freely around the castle, he cannot leave the premises.
He also gets his private laboratory equipped with everything he needs. He is forced to release krakatit by any means possible. One of the means is the beautiful Tatar Princess Wille, who is supposed to attract Prokop’s attention.
However, she falls in love with Prokop and helps him to escape – she takes him out with her car past the guard. In the process she knocks over his guard Mr. Holtz, who was trying to prevent them from leaving.
The Princess drops off Prokop on the road far from Balttin and goes back. Prokop is desperate because he also loves the Princess, and maddened by his love for her, he returns to Balttin to see Tomesh, determined to reveal the formula for krakatit only if he can be with her.
On the way back he meets a diplomat, Mr. Daimon, who was staying at the castle and who tells him that the Princess has gone to Italy. Mr. Daimon takes Prokop to Italy, where he introduces him to the group of anarchists he leads.
They manage to steal krakatit and want to take over the world with his help. Prokop is received with great enthusiasm as its inventor, and Mr. Daimon offers him to lead the whole group, make krakatit, carry out a rebellion, and eventually lead the whole world and make it better.
Confusion ensues around krakatit’s crate, and Prokop, Mr. Daimon, and an unknown girl flee to Daimon’s mansion. There, Prokop finally gets to know the radio station, which, thanks to its disturbing high-frequency waves, enables the eruption of krakatit.
Daimon tells him that Tomesh is now working on the production of krakatit at the factory in Gottupy. Prokop goes to the factory to warn him about the dangerous wave radiation, but Tomesh refuses to talk.
Prokop knows very well that an explosion is imminent,
so he runs away. Not long after, a powerful explosion occurs, during which the entire factory and the surrounding area are destroyed.
The light of a lantern suddenly appears in front of Prokop. He sees an old man with a vehicle and goes to him. The old man shows him different places in the world with
a peephole.
Prokop first sees the old man from the ceiling of his old laboratory in Hybšmonka, then his own father, but in the end, he realises that God himself is speaking to him. God indicates that man should prioritize thinking over feeling and take responsibility for his actions.
In the end, Prokop realises that a small and useful thing will benefit humanity more than the terrible discovery of krakatit, which can only harm it.
He even forgets its chemical formula and is determined
to start from the other end – he finds the meaning of life in smaller inventions.
